Rhology Strains at a Gnat

Over at Buggers All (they call it Beggars All, but that’s pretense talking) there is a stupefyingly idiotic post by Mr. Alan “Rhology” Maricle. In it he uses the occasion of pro-life activity at an abortion mill to take a few swipes at the “blasphemous” content of the prayers recited by some Catholics who were at the scene.

Mr. Rho (for I would be loath to call him by any other than his chosen, if transparent, alias) begins:

While out at the abortion clinic, I’ve noticed that a few older Roman Catholic gentlemen come out as well for ~30 minutes, set out some pro-life signs, and pray what I was pretty sure was the Rosary.

Mr. Rho of Norman Shocked by Luke

OF COURSE, Catholics have been praying the Rosary in front of abortion mills (and Planned Parenthood facilities) for some time now. But to listen to Mr. Rho tell it, you’d think that the Catholic Church (or perhaps just its “older gentlemen”) has only now discovered pro-life. I pray the Rosary outside these facilities, and I regularly see large numbers of Catholics of every age group—men, women, children. To my knowledge, we’ve never been joined by a Protestant; though every Catholic I know would welcome their presence—and the presence of anyone else, for that matter, who’d like to join us. I’d be happy to have Mr. Rho stand next to me; he could pray any prayer he liked—the Our Father, a spontaneous utterance, one of the Psalms; I wouldn’t look at him funny.

Now, maybe Catholics are a curiosity in Norman, Oklahoma. That’s possible. But I confess I am surprised by Mr. Rho’s seeming innocence whether they were praying the Rosary. The man is actively involved in apologetics contra the Catholic Church, so his being unable to positively identify the Rosary seems strange. It’s easily identified by the quotations from Luke 1:28 and Luke 1:42-43. Usually, Catholics are holding those funny little beads when they say it, making it the more recognizable. But Mr. Rho is all innocent about such things. He steps out of his tent and is shocked and undone.

Mr. Rho of Norman Spits Up His Sandwich

BACK TO HIS dumb post. Mr. Rho goes on, in his next paragraph, to speculate that the Rosary has no effect at all on abortion, but that it does “mak[e] demons laugh uproariously.” He makes no mention of whether demons laugh at abortion itself, or the continual re-election of Nancy Pelosi. But he is dead certain that they are in stitches when they hear Luke 1:28 and Luke 1:42-43.

Before Mr. Rho left the abortion mill, one of the “older” Catholic gentlemen (the Catholic Church in them thar wheat fields is only populated by geezers who long for the glory days of Trent) handed him a pamphlet. (He took care to ask them for a copy of this very smoking gun of their cultish ways. There may be a future for him as a PI. Maybe he is one, by night. What do I know?) On it were printed some of the prayers they recite while outside the House of Death. Mr. Rho “flip[s] through” to discover “verses of sheer awesomeness.” We papists can deny it no more! Our mask has been ripped off! Where be now our deceits? They are gone, gone, gone! Who would have thought that such a blogger could have destroyed so much of our beautiful wickedness? But this phraselogy from Mr. Rho makes me perplexed that someone such as himself, so actively engaged in apologetics, is so seemingly innocent of The Prayer to St. Michael and the Salve Regina. He has just discovered them for the first time, there in Norman, and is shocked.

“If you can pray these,” Mr. Rho intones, “without wanting to throw up, you need to repent, and quickly.” He is very prone to losing his lunch over prayer, but his stomach is quite calm at the death he was there to protest in the first place. For, in his post, he says nothing about the murderers inside the abortion mill needing to repent. He has no words to say about the vomit-worthy characteristic of pictures of aborted babies. No. Mr. Rho goes out to an abortion clinic, returns home to his blog, and spits up his sandwich over the content of Catholic prayer.

Mr. Rho of Norman Lacks Proportion

I AM SAD to report that this attitude is very common among a certain class of anti-Catholic. Not all Protestants are thus. But I do very well remember—I was still a Protestant then—learning about 40 Days for Life and wanting to get involved. But when I found out that there would be an almost-exclusively Catholic presence at the abortion mills, I decided not to go. There was no way I was going to stand next to someone praying the Rosary.

I regret ever having felt that way. More than that, I regret that someone like Mr. Rho feels that pro-life work is an appropriate context in which to dispute the content of Catholic prayer. Doesn’t the monstrous evil of abortion trump those theological differences? If you don’t think it does, then I have no words to describe my shock at the lack of proportion. Let it go; the Devil loves our division at such moments especially well.

I have profound differences with Mormons. They are wrong about the Trinity and the person of Christ, and that’s just to start with. It may be all well and good to have a discussion about all that, or the content of their prayers, but in a different context. If I encounter Mormons praying at an abortion clinic, my only thought at the moment would be: Good for them for taking a stand against this hideous scourge. I’m certainly not going to go rushing home to my blog to cry, “Shame, shame! Mormons deny the divinity of Christ! I could just throw up! Remind me never to eat lunch right before I go out to the abortion mill. I might run into Mormons and get sick!” If I stand next to them where I can agree with them, that does not mean that I agree with them on all things, or that differences should not be discussed. But it does mean that, for the moment, they are moot. If he had been equally willing (and for the record, I don’t know what his opinion about abortion was), I would have stood next to Christopher Hitchens in front of an abortion mill and welcomed him as a brother in the fight against that hideous evil. And he and I would have had fierce battles, I am sure, about the existence of God—in a different setting.

Catholics and Reformed Protestants have serious differences, and they merit discussion and debate. But in the context of our shared outrage at the murder of the unborn: Mr. Rho, let it go.

Dave Armstrong weighs in on the topic here. I offer a follow-up response here.

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